Free Hand for a Tough Cop (1976): an outrageous buddy-cop film from a Video Nasties legend (Review)

Umberto Lenzi is one of those directors whose reputation in the UK has been bent out of shape by the video nasties scandal. Since the Director of Public Prosecutions’ list of potentially obscene films has spent decades doubling as a watchlist for horror fans, Lenzi is best-known in this country for helming two of its most notorious titles, Deep River Savages and Cannibal Ferox. Prior to his death in 2017, Lenzi’s reaction to this was rather sweet. On the one hand, he hated his cannibal films and wished to be celebrated for his crime movies instead. On the other, he would often make it clear in interviews that he invented the cannibal horror genre, not that upstart Ruggero Deodato.

Those wishing to check out a film Lenzi was prouder of can head directly to Fractured Visions’ new Blu-Ray release of Free Hand for a Tough Cop, an entry into the Italian Poliziotteschi or “spaghetti crime” subgenre. Beginning, as most crime films don’t, with an epic horse chase across Monument Valley that turns out to be a film-within-a-film, it’s one of the most outrageous takes on the buddy-cop formula I’ve ever seen. The titular tough cop is Claudio Cassinelli’s Inspector Sarti, who would unquestionably be the loose cannon in any other police thriller. In this film, though, he has to share the spotlight with Tomas Milian’s “Monnezza” (literally “Garbage Can”), a prisoner who Sarti helps to escape once he realises he has vital information.

Christopher Nolan once described Batman and Commissioner Gordon as Dirty Harry teaming up with Frank Serpico, but Sarti and Garbage Can is Dirty Harry teaming up with the Scorpio Killer. Garbage Can is an astonishing Manson-looking freak, who wins our sympathy largely because the actual villain, Henry Silva’s child-kidnapping Brescianelli, is even more repellent than him. Also, perhaps, because Garbage Can does such a tremendous job puncturing the solemnity of what could otherwise be a very grim story, and the Italians have always understood the importance of a little commedia dell’arte. During one tense negotiation, he yells at his opponent to wipe his face. When asked why, he tells the criminal he’s got a torrent of shit coming out of his mouth.

It’s that kind of film – a million miles from subtle or tasteful, but pretty damn entertaining. This is also something like the perfect vehicle for Milian’s talents, with Garbage Can going on to appear in four more movies. Milian has 120 screen credits, but the one that was most familiar to me was If You Live, Shoot!, a western by Guilio Questo that was retitled Django Kill for trend-hopping reasons. If You Live, Shoot!‘s mix of psychedelia, homoeroticism and Gothic horror is potent enough to briefly make Milian look like a normal actor; in the context of a (comparatively) grounded movie like this, he tears the proceedings up, to thoroughly entertaining effect.

Not that the rest of the film is tame, exactly – but it’s never as extreme as you’d expect a dirty-cop movie from the director of Cannibal Ferox to be. I mean that as a good thing; Brescianelli is a vile character but his kidnapping of a wealthy family’s daughter is at least motivated by greed rather than perversion, and there are none of the unsimulated scenes of animal slaughter that make Lenzi’s cannibal movies so lastingly contentious. It’s a violent film, but by and large Lenzi’s considerable gift for transgression goes towards creating a sense of chaos about to boil over rather than explicit splatter. It’s the sort of film which can’t have the villains throw a pram in the heroes’ way without giving you a close-up of the crying baby inside, just to remind you that – for all Garbage Can’s theatrics – real people are in serious danger here. The car chases are clearly influenced by The French Connection, and for once the comparison doesn’t shame the imitator.

As with Fractured Vision’s last release, Silent Action, the backdrop to all of this is the “Years of Lead” in 1970s Italy. You get a sense of where the baseline of normality lies when a murder is mistaken for a political assassination: in most countries, at most times, that plot detail would work the other way round. There is a fine piece in the extras giving background on the Italian film industry and Italian politics of the time, but the majority of the bonus features concern the film itself. Very good they are too, including two audio commentaries and interviews with everyone from the film’s producer Ugo Tucci to Lenzi’s daughter Alessandra. Free Hand for a Tough Cop is a snapshot of a very tense moment in Italian history, but Fractured Vision’s presentation of it harks back to a much happier time, a time when it was normal for home releases to have a presentation as cared-for as this. Aside from anything else, when was the last time you had cause to praise a disc for having a cool animated menu?

MOVIE PODCAST, POP SCREEN IS ON ALL GOOD PODCAST APPS

THANK YOU FOR READING GRAHAM’S REVIEW OF FREE HAND FOR A TOUGH COP